The Equation - Link/Evaluation

The Equation

Evaluation

Our production got an A-

Brief:
Although our brief was a very simple and generic task of a character walking into the room and talking to another character across the table. I believe that we were able to go one step further and create something that was a lot more detailed and expanded than the original brief. Our production consisted of a hostage character being interrogated and tortured by a Mafia style gangster. Our main idea was started from that and we decided to use the famous Reservoir Dog torture scene as inspiration.

Planning:
In terms of planning, I think our group worked exceptionally well as we were able to efficiently finish the shot list, storyboard, script in a couple of days after it was tasked. We had initially decided to finish the planning a couple of days before the deadline and didn't want to be in the position where we would be working on it the day or night before. This was effectively done as we had a lot of communication between us as a group and we had quickly split the work load between us all. This helped to create a smooth and efficient work flow which in the end was very helpful especially when it came to our filming as we had essentially got a very solid idea together and were able to go through with it with confidence.

Strengths:
There were quite a lot of different areas where our production was strong, one of the strengths was the point of view shot that we had of the hostage, where we only saw the interrogating character. This helped to easily suture the audience and create a sense of hostile intimidation as it looked like the character was actually threatening the audience. This was very effective and all thanks to our amazing actor Izaaz who through his performance was really able to bring out the menacing personality of the character that we wanted to portray. We also made the production look very realistic through the use of make-up, iconic prop and stereotypical costume, the simple use of a dark attire and red tie was able to give the sense of the Mafia style boss of the character. There were also a lot of good camera work and framing, such as the pan from the close up of the hands and feet tied to the medium shot of Izaaz taking off his jacket. Also, the non diegetic sounds in the background were also parallel to the plot and theme and we were also able to put in the small idea of contrapuntal through the scene where the bodyguard was listening to contrapuntal music. Something that I personally am very proud of is the editing cut used at 1:40 when Izaaz takes off the scarf and it cuts to another shot from a different angle but the cut is heavily dependent on the scarf across the frame and uses it as a wipe. This technique I'm very proud of as I have always wanted to do this type of technique and learnt it from watching my favourite movies of Edgar Wright who is one of my favourite directors. Finally, we were also able to create a lot of enigma and action codes such as Izaaz cracking his knuckles, taking his jacket off and taking his ring off. The use of close ups and silence in the beginning helped to slow down the pace and create tension which I think was very effective.

Weaknesses:
Although, I personally I am very proud of this production, I still am adamant that it could have been improved and made thoroughly better. One of the main weaknesses was the breaking of the 180 degree rule. This was very disorientating to the audience and I think is something that we need to work on much more and worry about in our future productions as it is a convention that is very heavily used and impacts the audience a lot. Another weakness was that our violence, although was very clear through the use of prop and make up, it wasn't very clear through the actions as the punches thrown seemed weak and fake as there was little to no reaction from the victim. Finally, another factor that could have been improved was the audio levels and the intensity of the lighting. As we filmed on different days, we had trouble with keeping the lighting consistent which is definitely something we can work on, also the audio levels were inconsistent as the microphone would generally pick up a lot of the surrounding static noises which we could work on in post-production and reduce it manually.